 They're on both of us. So what are we going to talk about this week? Well, there's a great deal that's happening. Let me start off by showing people a beautiful poster that just came out of the printer's office today. And what this describes is a project that I'm very, very excited about. This year the city of Burlington is going to undertake the most extensive and ambitious beautification project that we have ever done. And one of the reasons that we're going to have such a good project is that the Howard Bank was very gracious and made an $18,000 grant to the city for the beautification effort. And that covers about 75 or 80% of the total budget that we're going to need. So what we're going to be doing, and I should point out that if we're going to be successful, we're going to need a lot of volunteers. So I hope that people, as they listen, will think about the possibility of volunteering. The project is going to entail a number of different aspects. On April 25th, just a Saturday, we're going to be planting about 200 new trees throughout the city of Burlington. In the last three or four years, we've planted some 2,500 trees, some of them small, some of them very large. We're going to continue that. And this spring, we're going to plant 200 new trees. To make that project a success, we're going to need volunteers. And our hope is that people who are interested in volunteering will give the mayor's office a ring at 658-9300, Mayor's Office. And George Table, who's my assistant, will talk with you, and we can plug you into the project. How many volunteers have there been in the past, do you think? We have had on tree planting days between, if my memory is correct, 100 to 200 people. That's quite a few people, isn't it? Quite a few people. And the commitment would be probably at this point from 9 o'clock to 12 o'clock, or maybe even less time. But it's really an exciting thing, and it's a lot of fun, because you can really see the impact that you make. I mean, after you leave, there is going to be a tree standing that wasn't there before you started. So we hope that people will come out. And the reason that we've been successful in this project in the past is because we have had volunteers, and we're going to need volunteers again, okay? So that is Saturday, April 25th, for those people who are interested in tree planting. Have all those trees survived? No. But the vast majority of them have. I think when you plant trees, you understand that some of them, for a variety of reasons, will die. Some of them are vandalized, and that's a few things to get me more upset than seeing some beautiful young trees ripped apart. And that happens. But if my memory is correct, we have, in fact, about 90% of the trees that we've planted have in fact prevailed and stayed. And that's pretty good. I think we also made a mistake a couple of years ago in that some of the trees that we've planted along some of the larger streets, such as Winooski Avenue, were too small. And what we're doing now is planting larger trees. They're a little bit more expensive, but the likelihood of them surviving is that much better. How come the Howard Bank got involved in this? One of the things that I have been doing is starting a process by which I am communicating with the banks in the city a little bit more than we used to. It is no secret, of course, that the banks in our community receive their money from the people in this community. We all put money into the banks, and they make a profit on that. And I think it is absolutely fair to say to the banks, to ask the banks to say, okay, you're parts of our community. You're making money in our community. We would like a very positive relationship with you. And we want to be sure that you're investing in our community and you're helping us do the many projects that need to be done, especially at a time of federal cutbacks and our dependency on the property tax. And I'm very proud to say that I called up Bill Chadwick, who was the president of the Howard Bank a few weeks ago. Bill came in and I said, you know, we have an ambitious beautification project that we would like to undertake. And within a couple of days he was back to us with a very, very large grant that will make this project a success. So we're very grateful to the Howard Bank and appreciative of their grant. That's great. On May 2nd, so if you're into tree planting, that's April 25th, on May 2nd is a green up day. And what's special about this green up day is the city's landfill is going to be open free of charge for city residents who are non-commercial, obviously. We don't want the commercial haulers to use on that day. But if you're, you know, if you live in the city of Burlington and you want to clean out your attic and clean out the basement and get the crap out of the backyard, May 2nd is the day because you can take all of your stuff down to the landfill free of charge. On that day, we're also going to have volunteers working with the parks department and the public works department going throughout the city, getting rid of the litter that's in the city, that's in the city. You know, when the snow melts, you begin to see a lot of things that are not very attractive. So we want to clean up the city on that day. We want to clean up the waterfront area, the parks. And we'll be assembling here in City Hall. We'll have the implements that will be needed. We'll have plenty of plastic trash bags. And again, we're going to need volunteers to make that project a success. That's May 2nd. That's May 2nd. Now, if you're not into tree planting and if you're not into green up or clean up, don't be depressed. We still have something for you. On May 30th, we're going to be doing far and away the most extensive flower planting effort that we have ever done in our history. Now, some years ago, I was in Quebec City and I'm sure that many of the viewers were in Quebec City. And there are other cities like Quebec City that just go out of their way to plant large numbers of flowers. And they have flower beds throughout the city. And the impact of those flower beds in my mind is just extraordinary. It just adds a lot of natural beauty to the city. And my hope is that an expectation is that this year we'll be planting at least a dozen major flower beds in parks and in through fares throughout the city. So people should be seeing a lot more in the way of beautiful flowers throughout the city of Burlington. And we're going to need help on that one. Now, we intend to hire a coordinator who will stay on top of that throughout the year. But we are going to need volunteers on Saturday, May 30th to help come out and plant flowers. So if people have experience or you don't have experience, come on out and help make the city more beautiful. Now, in the spring and summer also, as part of a second year effort, we are going to be sponsoring a home and business beautification contest which will give awards in August to those residents and businesses which, in fact, have the most beautiful property. Last year we had... Are these combined or are they separate? Separate categories. Separate categories. And last year we had some just beautiful gardens throughout the city. People who did it on their own, no city money, just maintained their flowers and it was just beautiful. And we want to acknowledge that and encourage that. So we hope that people will get involved and do some flower planting in their gardens. And lastly, which is not included on the poster here, is we're going to expand the program that our Community and Economic Development Office has been working on for the last few years. And that is a painting and sprucing up project. We will make available to families that don't have a lot of money free paint and perhaps some volunteer help in order to paint their homes. One of the nice things that we have seen in the old North End, for example, and in other areas, is some homes that were really dilapidated have been turned around for a lot of reasons. We have the Community Land Trust doing work. We have the Youth Employment Program involved. And we want to help those people just don't have a lot of money get free paint to spruce up their houses. Is this part of the home improvement program or is this separate? I'm not sure how we'll work it out, but we're going to add to what has been going on. And it will be part of the beautification process. So to make a long story short, this year we are going to have the most extensive and ambitious beautification effort that we've ever had. And I'm excited. I'm excited because this, in fact, is a beautiful city. We are really blessed. The fact that we have the hills on the east part of our city, that we look out over the lake. We have the mountains behind the lake that physically we are blessed with being a beautiful city. We are making real progress on our waterfront to enhance the beauty of that area. And I think it's important that all of us pitch in to make the city as beautiful as it possibly can be. And the theme, the theme of the effort is take pride in Burlington. We are a beautiful city and let's enhance that beauty. So that's one project that I'm very excited about. Does anyone have any problems with that, with that project, do you think? Actually, yeah, I suppose those people who like ugliness and dirt and filth, they'll think it's not a good project. There's no one that's, there's no letters to the editor or letters to the mayor saying that that's a waste of money or anything like that. Well, the interesting point, I didn't make that point clearly enough, is that in the past what we have done is cooperated with the business community and the business community has been very generous in this respect. In point of fact, this time, although we're going to have the largest budget we've ever had, it's going to be probably all covered by private donations. The Howard banks 18,000 dollar grant will cover 75 or 80 percent of the budget. And I think we can pick up the rest from the private sector as well. So the beauty of this particular project is that it's going to cost zero or very, very little city money. So I would, people who oppose this I think would be pretty hard pressed. It's not costing the city any money and we're going to go a long way to planting trees and flowers and cleaning up the city. So I think this is a project of which there should not be terribly much political controversy. Great. Now let me talk about a project of which there will be controversy. Well, let me just touch on again what is an issue of absolute major concern should be to the taxpayers of the city of Burlington and the schoolchildren of Burlington. That of course is the state aid education formula. And let me just brief the citizens of Burlington and other communities what we are doing. Now let me give a little bit of background here. As I hope many of the viewers know, several weeks ago the house of representatives in Montpelier passed a $32 million state aid to education program, which was strongly supported by Governor Cunin. And it's based on what they call a foundation distribution formula. Now the essence of what that distribution formula does in brief, from my point of view, is this. Despite the fact the $32 million is an extraordinary increase in state aid to education. And despite the fact that we estimate about three more million dollars will be leaving the city of Burlington from our homeowners from the business community to go into education. The children of Burlington will get zero dollars back, zero dollars back. And that to me is beyond comprehension. But Burlington, of course, is not the only community that is being being treated unfairly by this formula. Right here in our own county, Winooski. And you know, it's amazing to me that people can anyone can think that Burlington or Winooski are wealthy communities are rich communities that just just so stupid. Winooski. I mean that there are lots of rich people and rich stuff here, right? Yeah, there may be rich people here, but that does not make us a rich community. You determine what are that a community is rich. If everybody is rich or people do not have economic problems in Burlington, vast majority of our people are having a hard time making ends meet. They cannot afford higher and higher property taxes in the bond school and in the Wheeler School in the old North End. Over 80% of the children in those schools receive free or discount lunches because their families don't have a lot of money. So anyone who wants to argue that Burlington is a wealthy community, we think there's just totally off the mark. Well, how come they would think it would? I mean, it doesn't seem as if there can be a, I mean, it should be pretty obvious if it's. The problem is it's like saying, Nat, are you a nice guy? Well, some people think you're a nice guy. Some people might think you're a jerk, you know, and you can debate that issue for 28 years depending on the criteria that you're going to use. You can make a case and come up with the formula that says Burlington is the wealthiest community in the world. You can come up with another formula equally valid, which will say that Burlington is an extremely poor community. It depends on what you want to throw into the formula. If you look at the income factor, which means the ability of people to pay, you know, if you don't have any money, in my definition, you're not wealthy. Many of our citizens are poor, are elderly, working class people who do not have a lot of money to pay higher and higher taxes. To me, that indicates that we're not a wealthy community. Now, on the other hand, if you want to say does Burlington have a reasonably prosperous downtown, do we have a significant manufacturing and industrial base? The answer is we do. Does that make me wealthier? Does it make you wealthier? No, it doesn't. Does it have some ability on what kinds of property taxes residential homeowners will pay? It does. The question is how you tie in property wealth versus income. That's been the debate. To make a very long story short, the present formula not only will give zero dollars to Burlington, and what that will mean without any increase in state aid is that property taxes in Burlington will soar every single year for the indefinite future. That is the main point that I want to get out to the people of Burlington. If you do not get state aid, the only place that the school department will have to look for additional money is to the homeowners and the property tax payers. Beyond the doubt, although I don't deal with their budget, but there's not the slightest doubt in my mind that every single year for the indefinite future, they will be back for significant property tax increases. The reason is, because we're getting nothing from Montpellier, we are now paying for our schools. Over 95% of that budget comes from the property tax. Totally insane, totally unfair. Now, in addition to Burlington being in that position, Winooski is intended to get zero increases, Essex Town, Essex Junction, South Burlington, Williston, Bolton, among communities in Chittenden County. Outside of Chittenden County, Rutland City is suddenly defined as a wealthy community. They're not. Where's the 32 million going? Good question. I don't have the shot in front of us. Some communities are doing very, very well. In our county, for example, two communities that do extraordinarily well are Milton and Colchester. Around the state of Vermont, other communities do very, very, very well. 32 million worth? Well, 32 million dollars is distributed. So 80 communities will get nothing. Over 80 communities will get zero, and the rest of the communities will get something. How many communities are there? More or less, I guess. Actually, I'm not sure how many school districts they are. There are 246 cities and towns. So most will get increases, some will get zero. And for the people who get zero, there will be significant property taxes in years to come. So what my job is now is to work with those communities that don't have a lot of money and are not being treated fairly by this formula and rally them. I'm going down to I'm going down to Brattleboro on Monday. I'm going to be in Rutland on Monday. Those are two communities that are getting zero. And furthermore, we have sent out a letter that many of the residents of Burlington probably will have received by the time this program is added. If not, shortly they will have received. There's a letter from my office, from the Board of Aldermen and from the school board, denouncing the state aid to education plan, and urging them to contact Governor Cunin, who is supportive of it, to contact Senator Hoff, who is chairman of the Senate Education Committee. He has the power basically to rewrite the formula and the other five Chittany County Senators. We can turn it around. And if the Senate is from Chittany County and the Senate in general knows how strongly people feel about it, we can stop that formula and get a fair shake for the kids in Burlington. And for all the kids, for all the kids. And this is all because of federal cuts, right? This kind of, no? This kind of, it's nothing. This basically is, state aid to education has been going on in this state for many, many years. And, you know, they keep changing formulas as to how do you distribute the money. And what they have just decided, this session is a new formula called the Foundation Formula. They used to have the Morse Giuliani Formula. The Foundation Formula for Distribution was passed by the Senate. It is now going to the House, a big apart. It was passed by the House. It is now going to the Senate. If it is not stopped, stopped in the Senate, the governor will sign it. It'll be a disaster for the taxpayers and children of Burlington. But it has nothing to do with federal aid. Basically, it's the state's commitment to education, which is appropriate. Our concern is not that there's an increase in state aid. Our concern is that it is a horrendous formula for many of the communities. Okay. Any other? Yeah, that's only half the show, Bernie. Okay. Yeah, there's a lot else that's going on. Yesterday, no, not yesterday. Last week. No, not last week, actually. It was a couple of days ago. We announced a program which to me is one of the most exciting programs that we have initiated in the city of Burlington in many years. And I wanted to explain that a little bit. The city of Burlington has a retirement fund for its city employees. And we're very proud that six years ago, when I first became mayor, there was about $10 million in the fund. Now there's about $28 million in the fund. Essentially, the fund has been well invested. The stock market has, of course, significantly increased its value. And we have now $28 million in that fund for our city employees. Benefits are now increased, et cetera. One of the issues that has concerned me for a long time and has concerned many people throughout the United States of America is how retirement funds, how university funds, how nonprofit endowment funds are invested. Very important and interesting issue. What you have in this country is the unions themselves have literally billions and billions of dollars in their retirement funds. And historically, what they have done is allowed their investment counselors to simply invest it in any way that they wanted, forgetting about the needs of their clients, in this case, the unions, if you like. And the irony that you have there is that often the money was invested in anti-union activity, projects that union labor could not be allowed to be involved in. So I think the unions are beginning to wake up to the potential of that investment, those tens of billions of dollars. Certainly, we have heard a lot of discussion surrounding the investment of university money in terms of South Africa. And what universities around America are saying, what the city of Burlington has said with its investment fund, we choose not to invest in companies that are propping up the neo-fascist government of South Africa. And we made that statement last year and that's been implemented. Now, what's happened is we made a further statement. We said, not only do we not want you to invest in South Africa, we want you to use that money here in Burlington to improve the quality of life of our people in terms of improved housing opportunities in terms of job creation, okay, in terms of economic development. So anyhow, it took a long, a whole lot of negotiations took place because the retirement system was concerned as they have every right to be concerned that the investment that they make is a good investment. In other words, it's not their job to give money away to anybody. They have to earn a good rate of return. Well, after a lot of negotiations, an agreement was worked out by which the retirement system is going to loan the community land trust, Burlington Community Land Trust, $1 million so that they can purchase property which can be converted into affordable housing, okay. And it's impossible to estimate what the implications of that will mean, but we're guessing about 30 units of housing, 30 new units of affordable housing, probably units that will be rehabbed and then leased out long term to low and moderate income people. So it's a very exciting project for us. The Community Land Trust has won an award from the United Nations for almost being a unique type program in America in terms of the city's involvement with a nonprofit group that is creating affordable housing. So you have a marriage here of two institutions, the retirement system and the land trust and the result will be affordable housing, more affordable housing in the city of Burlington. Very exciting project. Is that controversial at all? The element of controversy is within the retirement system to make certain that they get a good return on their investment. In other words, would not be acceptable to them, nor to me is for them, for us to say, we want you to give this money to somebody interest free, no profit. That would be unfair to the city employees. A rather complicated deal was worked out where there's going to be a certain rate of return upfront and a certain rate of return when the property is sold. And you combine the two, we think it's a pretty good deal for the retirement system. And from our point of view, though, what's exciting is the money is invested locally, it creates jobs, it improves our housing stock. So it's what they call a win-win situation. Everybody wins. I think that's a pretty good project. Can I ask you a question about Reagan? Ronald Reagan. Yes, you can ask me a question. If he's cutting federal dollars for lots of social programs, right? Does he expect the business sector, not the business sector, the private sector to pick up that? I think, I mean, that's been one of the fraudulent elements of Reaganism. What he announces, which you may recall years ago, they don't use this term anymore. You know, Reagan has these PR guys, they come out with statements, then a few months later they've forgotten. Some people may remember there was a concept called New Federalism. Remember that, New Federalism? Well, okay, some people, some people may remember it. And the concept of New Federalism, it sounds fine on the surface. What it says is, Reagan says, we want the federal government to get their hands out of problems of state government and local government. We think that government is best, which is closest to home. Let local government solve their problems, let state government solve their problems. The federal government should not be involved in all of these myriad of things. Local government knows the problems better, state government, et cetera, et cetera. It's a fine theory. I agree with it. The only thing that Reagan forgot to mention is that the billions of dollars that the federal government were going to put, that had put in, they had put in to local and state projects, they were now withdrawing. So what they were saying is, not we want you to take responsibility for the problem, but we also want you to figure out how to fund the problem. You follow what I'm saying? In other words, it's like saying to you, I was taking care of something for you. It's okay for me to say, I want you to take care of this project, but I also have to say, here's the money that I was spending on it. Now you have the money, you do it, because we think you can do it better. Local government in general can do it better, but without the money, we can't do it better. Then Reagan makes a big deal about how the private sector is going to pick it up. No way. It just can't do it because you're talking about tens and tens of billions of dollars, and the private sector through charity or through grants may help out a little bit, but they're not going to be replacing the loss of federal funding. We lost, as a city, one million dollars, one million dollars of federal revenue sharing. Now today, for example, I was mentioning that the Howard Bank made a very generous grant of $18,000. So $18,000 compared to a million dollars is not quite apples to apples. It's a fraction. So to answer your question, the private sector is not going to pick up what the federal government has cut back. And they're using that extra money because if they're not giving that money out, then that fellow, the government has it somewhere, right, and they're going to spend it somewhere else. The whole debate, of course, that's taking place in Congress and in this country is national priorities. Some of us have felt that the military budget is grossly bloated, that there could be very significant cuts in the military budget, that you could have a progressive tax system which asks corporations and wealthy people to pay their fair share, and that you can adequately fund the many social programs that the federal government should be funding. So how come the people of the United States haven't gathered together to insist that this stuff happens? Well, that's the $64 question to that. I think there's a lot of ignorance out there as to how government works. People like President Reagan have tremendous resources, they're supported by corporations and banks, and they buy nice 30-second ads to tell us all how lucky we are to be Americans, and they rip off the system right and left. So it's the same old story how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and the rich are able to buy politicians like Reagan. I think most people understand that Reagan is a spokesperson for the wealthy people in this country, and that's what happens. And the job of people like myself and people who have our politics is to try to rally working people, poor people, elderly people, to fight for their rights. So that's what's going on. Well, I still don't understand it, but look, here's a little bit of trash right here. How are we doing? Well, that's getting close, 25 and a half minutes. Okay. This week also we'll be announcing a very good program with another bank, actually, the Bank of Vermont, and that will be a program for senior citizens. And that program will essentially enable senior citizens in the city of Burlington to borrow money from the bank at a favorable interest rate to pay off their property taxes, to pay their property taxes, and the loan will not have to be repaid until the house is sold. Yeah, I've talked about this before, and that's going to be finalized next week. Is this only the Bank of Vermont, or is this? Yeah, this is a project we're working with the Bank of Vermont on. Yeah, so people will be directed to the Bank of Vermont who are offering favorable interest rates. Now it is not a panacea. This thing is not a cure for high property taxes. It is not a property tax relief program, and nobody should think there's not a penny of public money in it, no city money, no state money, no federal money. What it does do is it says to an elderly person who has a piece of property that in fact is increasing in value every year. Property in Burlington is going up. Now that same individual really doesn't want to sell the property. They want to live in that property until they die or until they choose to sell it. And their problem is now coming up with cash to pay property taxes, for example. Now if you and I go to the bank and take out a mortgage, what we have to do is make a monthly payment. So for an elderly person, even if they could get a mortgage, borrow money, very often their income is low, they're on social security, and they can't pay it back on a monthly basis. The beauty of this project is that you're not going to have to pay the money back until the house is sold. And that will include the appreciation of the value of the house every single year. For example, if you own a $70,000 home in the city of Burlington now, everything being equal, the value of your home is going up 5, 10, 15% a year. So in a sense, you're making $3,000, $7,000, $10,000 a year on the home. Well, it doesn't do you any good if you don't want to sell it, right? You can't get any cash for that to pay your taxes. So what we have basically done is said we are going to take that into consideration, we'll work with the bank, and people can borrow money to pay their property taxes, and they won't have to worry about paying it back until the house is sold, when in fact they are going to be getting cash or their sons or daughters or family will. It's a good program. Okay, great. Well, okay. I think that's about it. Okay, thank you.